


Lost Inside A Memory of Someone's Life

by Who_the_hell_is_Tre_Cool



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Assault, Car Accidents, Character Death, Ghosts, Homophobia, Luke and Ashton are DEAD, M/M, This is sad but not as sad as these tags make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26408485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_the_hell_is_Tre_Cool/pseuds/Who_the_hell_is_Tre_Cool
Summary: ' The boy doesn’t look threatening, sort of sad and withdrawn. He looks how Michael feels.Michael clears his throat and slowly approaches, surprised the boy didn’t hear him already. The boy startles and turns around quickly, puppy-dog brown eyes looking tearful.“I’m sorry,” He stubs his cig out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone had moved in. My- My boyfriend used to live here, I’m sorry.”Michael frowns and sits down beside him, “It’s alright,” He decides, because the boy clearly means no harm. He looks like a frightened animal. “It’s alright. What happened to your boyfriend?”“He passed away, a couple of years ago. He would’ve been twenty-two today.”And that makes Michael’s heart ache, because he was right, the boy is just like him. '
Relationships: Calum Hood/Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford/Luke Hemmings
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	1. Slip Right Through My Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Individual warnings will be at the beginning of each chapter! Most chapters are okay, but one has a flashback to Ashton's death. 
> 
> Overall this is pretty sad, but it's also hopeful!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Mentioned car accidents, hospitals, and coming to terms with character death!

Michael’s brain is a mess of anaesthesia, thoughts muddled into a giant tangle of _loudbrightpainloudloudloud._ The last thing he remembers is Luke’s yell of pain and the sound of a truck’s horn, before everything had gone dark. Luke- He doesn’t know where Luke is. He needs to know where Luke is.

With this thought in mind, he slowly pries his eyes open. The lights are bright and harsh, and he can make out mechanical beeping sounds from somewhere, but everything feels like he’s underwater. He blinks a couple of times, and tries to ask _“what’s going on?”_ but it comes out more as _“wh’g’on?”_

Eventually, his surroundings come into view, and he realises with a jolt that he’s in a hospital bed. He turns his head slightly, and sees his mum, watching him with worry.

“Michael baby? Are you awake?” She asks, voice wobbly and tearful.

He takes a moment to process, before mumbling, “Luke? Where’s Luke?”

Her face crumples, and she dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Michael immediately knows that something terrible has happened.

“Mum?” He tries to sit up, but finds his body uncooperative. Stupid anaesthetic.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry baby,” His mum comes to him instead, wrapping him up in a hug that makes his ribs vaguely ache, but he doesn’t want her to let go. “Luke didn’t make it.”

###

At 10:02pm, Luke and Michael were returning home from their date.

At 10:15pm, a semi-truck ran a red light and collided with the passenger side of their car.

At 10:36pm, the ambulance arrived.

At 11:09pm, both of them entered surgery.

At 12:58am, Michael left surgery.

At 1:04am, Luke Hemmings was pronounced dead.

###

Returning to their empty house was what Michael had been dreading most, but here he was, stood on the doorstep, wobbling on his crutches. His mum is coming over tomorrow, despite his request to be left alone, but at least he has the night to himself to contemplate.

He follows his usual path into the living room, but doesn’t turn on the tv. He sits on their couch, a ratty old thing Luke’s brother Ben had given them, and lays his crutches on the floor. The house is silent, and the clatter of his crutches knocking against each other echoes loudly. He can’t bring himself to make any noise.

It feels surreal, the fact that Luke’s gone. He can’t comprehend it. He can almost hear Luke bumbling around in the kitchen, humming along to the radio.

But he’s not there. And he never will be again.


	2. Is Anyone There At All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for graphic depictions of injuries! Luke and Ashton both as ghosts still hold the injuries that killed them.

When Luke wakes up, he can’t feel his body.

Which is strange, because he distinctly remembers a large truck barrelling towards him with no chance at stopping. He remembers being in pain. But now, he feels nothing.

No pain, no fatigue, no drugged-up numbness. Just nothing.

He opens his eyes and he’s in the spare bedroom of his and Michael’s home, looking up at the peeling glow in the dark stars left there by the previous owners that neither of them had bothered to take down. It takes him a moment, but eventually he manages to sit up, struggling to coordinate his limbs. He looks down at himself, and finds he’s wearing the clothes he’d put on for his and Michael’s date, black jeans, a red plaid shirt, and one of Michael’s comfy band tees.

The side of his shirt is torn and blood stained, as are his jeans. Is brain is slow to process, but once it does he starts to panic. Did the truck hit them? Why is he in the spare bedroom? _Where’s Michael?_

This thought spurs him into action, and he hauls himself out of bed, making his way over to the full length mirror on the back of the door.

He almost doesn’t recognise his reflection, if it weren’t for the clothes and the hair it would be impossible. Other than the wounds on his body he identified earlier, his face is entirely fucked up. As in, half of it is almost entirely missing. Raw, red, and gruesome, pieces of shattered glass stuck in his skin, flesh torn down to the bone. He thinks he can possibly see his brain, but at the same time he doesn’t want to linger on it too much.

He then realises that he’s slightly transparent.

And amongst all his panic, he finally spots the stranger sat on the bean bag in the corner.

Their eyes meet in the mirror, and he feels a shock of terror run through him. He’s scared and confused and just wants Michael.

Instead of breaking down in tears like he so incredibly wants to, he turns around slowly, to see that, yep, there is still a strange man sat on the beanbag.

Man may be an overstatement though, as he looks no older than eighteen, possibly twenty at a push. He has honey brown curls and hazel eyes, although one is bruised and slightly swollen. His face seems a strange shape, and Luke realises that his cheekbone is broken. He’s dressed much the same as Luke, even down to the band on his shirt, and his clothes are also stained with blood.

Despite all this, he smiles when Luke meets his eyes properly, revealing cute dimples. Luke thinks that at some point that smile probably lit up his face. But his eyes remain dull.

“I’m Ashton,” The boy says, standing up. He’s a little bit shorter than Luke, would probably be shorter than Michael, too.

“Why are you in my house? What’s going on?” Luke asks, because he wants answers dammit.

Ashton’s smile turns slightly sad, “I’m sorry. We’re dead.”

“I- What?”

“We’re dead. From the glass in your face, I presume it was a car accident that got you?”

Luke remembers the truck. And then he remembers nothing.

“Fuck,” He whispers, looking down at his own hands as if they can offer him the answer to everything, “Fuck. We’re dead? What the fuck-”

“I understand it’s a lot to take in. What’s your name?”

Luke fumbles his words a little, before managing, “Luke. I’m Luke.”

“Well Luke,” Ashton beams, and Luke tries not to cringe at the way his face folds inwards slightly. “I guess it’s up to lil ol’ me to answer all your questions.”

They sit down together on the bed, and Ashton starts to explain everything. How they’re mostly confined to the house, but can manage to walk routes they walked a lot while living. How they can’t really communicate with the living without using a lot of effort. They can mess with technology with a small amount of effort. If they concentrate they can pick up physical objects. Some ghosts with more willpower can reveal themselves to the living for a short amount of time, but it uses a lot of energy.

Luke asks, “Have you ever tried to reveal yourself to anyone?”

Ashton hums, looking sad, “I tried t reveal myself to my sister. My family was moving out and wanted to say goodbye. She ran to tell mum and mum assumed she was just imagining things. Kids handle grief differently, y’know? By time she came back, I’d run out of energy completely.”

“I’m sorry...”

He shrugs, in a ‘ _what can you do’_ , sort of way, “There wasn’t much else to do. They lasted in the house a year after I’d died, but mum kept walking into my room and crying when everyone else was asleep. And my little brother would come in and talk to me sometimes. I think moving out was good for them.”

“And if they hadn’t moved out, me and Michael wouldn’t have moved in.”

Ashton grinned, “And I’d be without a friend. Tell me about your Michael? I tried my best not to spy on you.”


	3. Shattered Glass Like The Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chaptered features a flashback to Ashton's death, it's the end of the chapter and is italicized so yo can skip it if you want. Also the word f*ggot is used once, also in the flashback.

Michael’s mum stays over for a couple of days, making sure he eats and sleeps and bathes and doesn’t drink himself to death or fall into a deep depression. It’s hard, and often he just wants her to leave him alone, but it’s nice to have someone’s arms around him when his world finally crashes down and he realises that Luke is never coming back. She holds him while he cries, crumpled to the floor in the kitchen, clutching at Luke’s mug which he’d automatically got out the cupboard when making coffee.

After about a week, she leaves him be, having to go back to work. He feels guilty for making her take time off, but the guilt is overshadowed by how grateful he is.

Once she’s gone, he settles down on the couch, intending to watch shitty tv until he falls asleep (resolutely ignoring the liquor cabinet). He’s just reaching for the remote when he spots movement in the back garden.

Assuming it’s just an animal of some sort, he ignores it, until he sees wisps of smoke drifting past the window. He gets up with some difficulty, still not that adept at using crutches, and opens the back door, not sure what he’s expecting.

It’s certainly not to see a boy his own age sat on the deck smoking.

The boy doesn’t look threatening, sort of sad and withdrawn. He looks how Michael feels.

Michael clears his throat and slowly approaches, surprised the boy didn’t hear him already. The boy startles and turns around quickly, puppy-dog brown eyes looking tearful.

“I’m sorry,” He stubs his cig out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone had moved in. My- My boyfriend used to live here, I’m sorry.”

Michael frowns and sits down beside him, “It’s alright,” He decides, because the boy clearly means no harm. He looks like a frightened animal. “It’s alright. What happened to your boyfriend?”

“He passed away, a couple of years ago. He would’ve been twenty-two today.”

And that makes Michael’s heart ache, because he was right, the boy is just like him.

“I lost my boyfriend too, about a week ago. Truck ran a red light and hit his side of the car. Doctors tried their best, but there wasn’t a lot they could do.”

The boy tugs his sleeve over his hand and scrubs at his eyes, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” He hesitates, “Well, it’s not, but I suppose it will be eventually. I’m Michael, by the way,” He adds, before pulling himself up to his feet and picking up his crutches again. “Do you want to come in?”

“Calum,” The boy responds, looking hesitant, “I don’t wanna intrude or anything-”

Michael shakes his head, “Nonsense. I’ll go make some coffee. Tell me about your boyfriend.”

“His name was Ashton...”

###

_“Fuck-” Ashton grabbed his hand with a giggle, tugging him towards the bus shelter just as the heaven’s opened and the rain started pouring down._

_Calum grinned, standing between Ashton’s legs as he perched on the weird bar that wasn’t quite a seat. Bus shelters were weird. He shoved his head underneath Ashton’s chin, making him squeal and bat him away._

_“Calum!” He cried, still giggling, “Your hair’s all wet!”_

_“I know!” Calum beamed triumphantly._

_Ashton shoved him back out into the rain, but Calum grabbed his hands, sending him stumbling out too. Ashton yelped again, quickly tugging them both back under the shelter. Calum leant down and kissed him on the nose, making Ashton blush and look around to see if anyone was watching._

_The only person around was an elderly woman who had been regarding them with an unreadable expression. Ashton tucked his head under Calum’s chin, for comfort instead of mischief. Luckily, the old woman got on the next bus, leaving them alone._

_“I really enjoyed today,” Ashton said softly, and Calum could feel his smile against his skin._

_“Yeah? Good,” Calum wrapped his arms around him in a tight bear hug, “Can’t believe my baby’s already twenty.”_

_Calum knew without looking that Ashton rolled his eyes. “I’m not your baby,” He protested, “I’m older than you.”_

_Giggling, Calum nudged Ashton until he lifted his head, then proceeded to press kisses all over his face, “Happy birthday baby.”_

_“Not your baby,” Ashton mumbled, but he was beaming. “I love you.”_

_Calum pressed a kiss to his lips, “I love you too.”_

_It was then that his world shattered._

_Strong hands clamped down on his shoulder, ripping him away from Ashton with a startled yell._

_“Ey, lookie here lads! A pair of faggots!” The man gleefully proclaimed, and Calum looked over to see a group of around five men surrounding them. The one holding him stank of alcohol, and he could barely hear over the scared pounding of his heart._

_The next few minutes passed in a haze of pain and yelling. The pair of them ended up on the floor with kicks landing all over them, the men laughing and cracking jokes. Ashton was crying in pain and Calum thought he was probably doing the same, but he felt detached from his body._

_When the men decided they’d had enough fun, they left, still laughing and yelling. Calum took a rattling breath, before hauling himself into a sitting position. Pain exploded behind his eyes, he was probably concussed from hitting the floor. His ribs ached, some were probably broken, and his arms were already bruising from where he’d tried to defend himself._

_He spat on the floor, the taste of blood strong in his mouth, before reaching out to grab Ashton’s hand. Ashton was curled in on himself slightly, eyes closed. His face was mottled with bruising, eye slightly swollen. His cheek looked a weird shape, and Calum knew without looking that the rest of his body would be bruised, much like his own._

_He shuffled over, biting down on the yell of pain, and lifted Ashton’s head into his lap._

_“Ash baby?” He murmured, voice torn and raspy, “Ash, they’re gone. Please open your eyes, please.”_

_Gently, he stroked his fingers through his boy’s hair, mumbling nonsense to him. He grimaced when his hand came away bloody._

_“Ash?” He said, slightly panicky now, “Ashton? Please open your eyes, please-” He cut himself off with a sob, scrambling to check for a pulse ,a heartbeat, breath, anything._

_When he found nothing, he curled around his body, and let his sobs tear him apart._

_He stayed there until a lady he recognised from the24 hour store across the road came over and sat down beside him, saying she’d called an ambulance .Calum barely heard her attempts to comfort him, just clung to Ashton and cried until the paramedics forced them apart._


	4. Memories I Can't Escape

“Hey Ash?” Luke asks a few days later. He’s started to grow accustomed to being a ghost, although he’d had to stay in the spare bedroom, since it hurt too much watching Michael go about his life without Luke there. “You know you mentioned that thing about some ghosts being able to become corporeal for a short amount of time?”

Ashton looks up at that. He’d been idly flicking through an old magazine, laid on his front and using weird ghost magic to turn the pages. “Yeah, I remember.”

Luke chews his lip, “Do you think we could like... Learn to do it?”

“I dunno,” Ashton rolls onto his back, looking up at Luke. He’s grown used to seeing the grave injuries on both of their bodies, but it still makes him cringe internally sometimes. “Maybe. We’d have to practice a lot. And it might be dangerous. If we use up too much energy we might disappear completely.”

“That’s... not good.”

Ashton gives him a look, and Luke can’t help but giggle. “No. It’s not. It’d be like dying again, but with nothing afterwards.”

If he were anyone else, he’d spend a long moment thinking about the risks and rewards. But he’s Luke, so he doesn’t hesitate before saying, “I wanna try.”

Ashton sighs, “Of course you do. Well, I suppose we can work it out.”

“Do you just need to concentrate super hard or what? That’s easy.”

###

It takes a couple of days for them to work out what they need to do, but after that it’s flat out, super hero training montage.

They’re taking a break one day, Ashton very carefully turning the pages of his magazine using his actually hands instead of manipulation, when Luke hears the sound of two sets of footsteps. He ponders for a moment, having not heard Michael’s mum’s loud voice, but then the door handle’s turning and he nudges Ashton, who sits up, quickly sliding the magazine under the bed.

“The guest bedroom is still made up, although it’s a bit dusty,” Luke hears Michael say, and then the door opens, revealing Michael with a dark haired boy Luke doesn’t recognised.

Luke goes still at the sight of Michael, something in his chest aching, and just watches him. Beside him, Ashton freezes, mouth falling open. The boy next to Michael also goes still. Luke panics for a moment, wondering if he can see them.

Instead, the dark haired boy steps into the room, looking around, and when Luke sees his face he realises there are tears in his eyes.

“Calum? What’s wrong?” Michael asks, and Ashton makes a choked off sob sort of noise from beside him, still watching Calum.

Calum sniffles, and Michael pulls him into a hug easily. Luke feels a pang of jealousy but quickly pushed it down.

“You kept his room the same,” Calum says, voice wobbly with tears, “The furniture, the curtains. Even the stupid stars on the ceiling that we stuck up together when we were kids.”

And Luke realises with a jolt that this must be _Calum_ , Ashton’s Calum.

Ashton has been slowly approaching them, and now he’s close enough to touch. He does just that, reaching out to stroke Calum’s hair away from his face. Luke expects him to withdraw at the last minute, or for his hand to pass straight through, but instead he makes contact, brushing his fingers through Calum’s curls with the same look of concentration he’d had when turning the pages of the magazine earlier.

Calum gasps, turning his head slightly, eyes darting around the room, but he clearly can’t see them.

Ashton makes another noise, like a wounded animal, and Luke grabs his hand, thankful that they can at least touch each other.

“Do you wanna stay here?” Michael asks, arms still wrapped around Calum, “If it’s too much, you can take my bed.”

Pulling away and wiping furiously at his eyes, Calum nods, “I think... Yeah. I don’t think I can stay here. Too many memories, y’know?”

“Yeah, I get what you mean,” Michael agrees, “I’ve been thinking of moving out.”

“No! You can’t move out!” Luke gasps, but only Ashton can hear him.


	5. Your Smile Can Light Up The Night

Calum ends up staying with Michael every couple of nights, and he’s usually around most days. While Michael’s still torn up over Luke, and every now and then will wake up and not be able to get out of bed, it’s nice having someone around who understands. On the days when Michael feels particularly terrible, he’ll text Calum, who will always bring a weird film or something and curl up beside him in bed until he’s ready to face the world.

He sometimes finds Calum in the spare bedroom, his boyfriend’s old room, just sat on the floor. He’ll make some hot chocolate and come and sit beside him, and let’s him talk for hours.

They help each other, is the thing.

So when Michael starts finding things not how he left them, he instantly tells Calum.

“I think I’m going mad,” He says in lieu of greeting when Calum arrives. To his credit, Calum takes it in his stride.

“Why’s that,” He asks, following Michael into the kitchen to put some coffee on.

Michael gets their two mugs from the draining board, and it makes him feel all warm inside that Calum has his own mug now. “I swear things are being moved when I’m not looking.”

Raising an eyebrow, Calum pours their drinks, “Yeah? You sure you’re not just forgetting things you’ve done? Gaps in memory is something that often comes with depression.”

“I know that,” Michael huffs, but he can’t really be mad at Calum, “This feels different though. Like, I’ll leave the washing up on the draining board and come back in the morning to half of it put away. Or like, books that I’d never read get taken off the shelves and I find them all around the house. And there’s this magazine I found in the guest room that keeps moving around.”

Calum hands Michael his mug, “What magazine?”

“A shitty teen rag, from a couple of years ago.”

Calum hums pensively, “Ashton used to read those a lot. Claimed they were for his sister but I’d always find them in his room. Maybe his parents didn’t clear out his room properly when they left?”

“That doesn’t explain why it moves around them room.”

“Mice maybe?” Calum suggests, holding his hands up in surrender at the withering look Michael gives him, “Well it’s either that or ghosts.”

Michael laughs, “Maybe it’s Luke and Ashton.”

Calum beams, “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it. Maybe wherever they are, they found each other, just like we did.”

Just then, there’s a loud thud from the living room. Michael hurries over to find a book on the floor, pages crumpled. He picks it up and straightens out the pages before slotting it back onto the shelf.

“I don’t think that’s a mouse,” He says to Calum, and Calum nods.

“Maybe it is ghosts.”

Michael rolls his eyes, “Oh yeah, let’s go buy a Ouija board.”

“Well I mean, there’s that whiteboard in Ashton’s old room,” Calum suggests, and Michael thinks he’s actually serious about the ghost thing, “We could put it on the wall, tie a pen to it, see what happens.”

It’s a stupid, terrible idea and Michael can’t believe he’s getting his hopes up for something so ridiculous, but he says, “Alright,” anyway.

###

They put the whiteboard up that night, and Michael thinks nothing of it when he and Calum go to bed, curling up together in a way that’s become so familiar. He’s not ready to replace Luke, he doesn’t think he ever will be, but Calum understands him and he understands Calum, and at the end of the day it’s nice to not be alone.

So when he wakes up and wanders downstairs, leaving Calum all soft and looking like a puppy, he nearly screams when he sees writing on the board.

Two sentences, both in shaky writing. One handwriting he recognises, the other he doesn’t.

In the handwriting that he’s almost certain is Luke’s, it says, “Hi Michael, I miss you,” With a small doodle of a smiley face with X’s for eyes.

Underneath, in the writing he doesn’t recognise, it says, “Calum, I’m glad you’ve got someone who understands you,” With a couple of hearts around it.

At the bottom of the board are four badly drawn stick figures, two couples holding hand. Of each couple, one person is a normal stick figure, while the other has some sort of tail. Michael realises suddenly that they’re meant to be ghosts.

He stumbles back a few steps before turning and running up the stairs, throwing himself onto the bed and shaking Calum’s shoulder.

“Calum! Calum wake up!”

Calum makes a disgruntled noise, swatting at him blearily.

“Wha-?” He mumbles, opening his eyes and squinting up at Michael.

“The board! I think- Either I’m really going crazy, or it’s been written on. By two people. And one of them’s Luke. And one’s addressed to you.”

This gets Calum’s attention, as he sits up and let’s Michael pull him out of bed.

As they make their way downstairs, Michael suddenly gets gripped with the fear that he’s hallucinated the whole thing, but he pushes past it and tightens his grip on Calum’s hand slightly.

Instead of the writing on the board greeting them, or worse, a blank whiteboard, there’s two people stood in the middle of the living room, looking hazy and soft and not quite solid.

Michael barely allows himself to entertain the possibility of _anything_ before there’s twin yells of, “Michael!” and “Calum!” And suddenly he has his arms full of a body he knows better than his own, even if it feels cold and not quite real.

There’s lots of crying and talking and more crying, but eventually, Luke and Ashton take a step back, and Michael gets his first good look at them.

It nearly makes him vomit, the grotesque wounds on their faces. But at the end of the day, it’s still them.

Even if they’re dead.


	6. Never Thought That It Would End (Epilogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: just mentions of death.

Michael doesn’t move out like he was planning on, now that he and Calum know Luke and Ashton are still there. Instead, Calum moves in with him.

They adopt three dogs, despite Ashton’s complaints, and even when Luke and Ashton don’t have the energy to become corporeal, the dogs can always see them.

Michael likes coming into the living room to see Moose rolled over, getting tummy rubs from invisible hands, or when Duke suddenly barks and runs towards an empty doorway, getting confused when he passes straight through whoever’s there. It’s nice, knowing that Luke and Ashton are always around, even when they’re not visible.

Oftentimes, Michael will come home to find Calum curled on the couch with a book, semi-corporeal Ashton leaning on his shoulder, letting Calum know when to turn the pages.

Sometimes he’ll be in the kitchen and hear humming, and he’ll turn to find Luke, almost completely transparent, sat on the countertop swinging his legs like he always used to. It makes his heart hurt sometimes, knowing that things will never be the same, but they’re good enough.

It’s nice knowing that when things go bump in the night it’s just Ashton trying to get books of the shelves, or when he feels sudden cold spots it’s just Luke close by.

And it’s nice knowing that when he and Calum eventually pass away, Luke and Ashton will be there, waiting for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments appreciated as always <3
> 
> Find me on tumblr @mastasof-ravenkroft
> 
> Additional content can be found here -> [ https://mastasof-ravenkroft.tumblr.com/search/ghost%20au ]


End file.
